Explore Gartner’s latest insights on the evolving threat intelligence landscape. Learn about key trends, challenges, and best practices.
Organizations face an increasing barrage of sophisticated threats in today’s dynamic cybersecurity environment, driving the adoption of threat intelligence (TI) products and services.
The Rising Demand for Threat Intelligence Demand for TI products and services is rising across industries, driven by the need to shift from reactive to proactive security. Security and business leaders recognize intelligence-led threat intervention’s importance in preventing disruptions, leading to increased staffing of dedicated in-house TI capabilities. However, many organizations aren’t fully realizing their TI investments’ potential, exhibiting a “maturity gap” due to a lack of structure and focus required to effectively utilize consumed intelligence.
Key Trends Shaping the Threat Intelligence Market Several key trends are shaping the TI market: Businesses are leveraging TI for broader applications beyond traditional security operations, including threat hunting (proactively searching for compromise), threat detection (building real-time capabilities), and threat exposure management (discovering and prioritizing risky exposures).Security and risk management leaders increasingly consolidate TI services with Digital Risk Protection Services (DRPS) and External Attack Surface Management (EASM) to ease procurement and enhance intelligence curation.
The market is seeing a wave of innovation, with providers differentiating themselves through advancements in areas such as Generative AI (GenAI), crowdsourced intelligence, and advanced analytics. Organizations are moving away from generic indicators, seeking curated, actionable insights tailored to their threat landscape to not only inform but also drive effective security actions. The “shift left” approach is emerging in the TI marketplace, with vendors branding improved diagnostics as “predictive intelligence,” analyzing early adversary infrastructure build-up signals to refine exposure remediation.
Programs should include the following key features :
Indicators of Compromise (IoCs):Malicious or suspicious IP addresses, URLs, domains, and file hashes.
Threat Actor Profiles: Detailed information on threat actors, their motivations, and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
Vulnerability Intelligence: Information on actively exploited vulnerabilities and associated IoCs.
Finished Intelligence Reporting: Technical, tactical, operational, and strategic intelligence products.
Advanced Analytics: Including GenAI, crowdsourced intelligence, and improved investigation portals.
Digital Risk Protection Services (DRPS): Monitoring services for threats to an organization’s digital assets, including the open, deep, and dark web.
External Attack Surface Management (EASM): Providing visibility into known and unknown digital assets to help organizations prioritize threat and exposure treatment activity.
Integration: Ability to integrate with other security systems like SIEM/SOAR, or ticketing tools.
Lack of Structure: To overcome this, organizations should establish priority intelligence requirements (PIRs) and develop a comprehensive target operating model. Information Overload: Seeking vendors providing curated indications and actionable insights is crucial to address end-user inundation with generic indicators.
Budget and Resource Constraints: This is where managed intelligence services and curated intelligence become essential.
Operationalization Challenges: Less mature security programs should seek curated, end-to-end intelligence services that can directly interface with existing systems to address integration struggles.
Difficulty in Measuring Effectiveness: Organizations need to focus on measuring the effectiveness of their TI programs to identify and address weaknesses.
Organizations can maximize the value of TI by:
Prioritizing Intelligence Requirements: Establish clear PIRs as the foundation for TI operations.
Choosing the Right Vendors: Evaluate vendors that offer actionable, proactive insights and innovative capabilities beyond just IoCs.
Acquiring the Right Blend of TI: Ensure alignment between chosen TI solutions and business objectives, as well as the maturity of your security program.
Aggregating and Aligning Data: Transform aggregated threat data into true intelligence by aligning it with PIRs.
Taking Action: Focus on using intelligence to improve SecOps effectiveness, process efficiency, and technology efficacy.
Correlating Threat Data: Correlate external threat data for better prioritization. Focusing on Actionable Insights: Choose intelligence providers that use advanced curation techniques.
Considering Integration: Ensure the TI solution integrates with existing security systems.
Threat intelligence is no longer a luxury but a necessity for organizations seeking to defend against today’s sophisticated cyber threats. By understanding the key trends, challenges, and recommendations outlined in the Gartner Market Guide, businesses can develop effective TI programs that enhance their security posture, reduce risk, and ensure business continuity.
The key is to move from a reactive to a proactive approach, focusing on actionable insights, innovative capabilities, and a curated understanding of the threat landscape.
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